Pros:
Blood is a very, very strong tank spec. On some fights I out-heal the actual healers.

Frost has massively strong single target and AoE capabilities, and is extremely bursty.

Unholy has a lot of good sustained damage when there are phases when you can't reach/attack the boss.

Anti-magic shell is one of the strongest non-tank defensive cooldowns in the game. It protects you while also fuelling you with virtually unlimited runic power for its duration.

Cons:
Runes are a somewhat complicated resource to manage, especially if you've never used them before. Runic empowerment or Runic Corruption help with this somewhat, but I personally like Blood Tap more.

Blood tap effectively gives you 3 resources to micro-manage.

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.So I chose the path of the Ebon Blade, and not a day passes where i've regretted it.I am eternal, I am unyielding, I am UNDYING.I am Zethras, and my blood will be the end of you.

I'm thinking of leleveling a Frost Death Knight and was wondering what some of the pros and cons of the class are?

Death Knights are a very fun class to level I must say after recently levelling one. I recommend sticking to Unholy till around level 75 before switching to Frost. The reason, being that Rune generation is pretty slow for Frost before their level 75 talents.

Lemme start with the Cons first:

Death Knights lack survivability compared to most melee classes. At least Frost lacks the most. The Rune system can get a bit hard getting use to in PVE and PVP. Those two would probably be my biggest cons of the class, more so the rune system. A lot of good Death Knights have learnt to "game" the system. I have not reallly bothered getting to much into it. I macro most of my spells and abilities.

Often times at least till around level 75 you will find yourself waiting for runes to come off CD and that is the most frustrating thing about playing a Death Knight. Looking at it though most classes have a similar problem, Rogues, Warriors and Feral Druids but Death Knights suffer in that department the most since most of your defence and abilities are tied around Runes and Runic Power.

The biggest drawback regarding Death Knights is learning to master the resource system. The reason there are so many fail Death Knights is they are really easy to do well with limited amount of skill, but they are hard to master.

Getting to the Pros:

They have very limited down time till around level 80 while questing. You are basically given a complete gear set that will take you all the way to level 68. Even though I did say the Rune system takes a bit getting use to, but they do manage to dish out very big numbers and quickly with limited amount of spells and abilities especially Frost. They have a very quick play style as DW Frost at least for PVE.

If you are into soloing old world content, they have probably the best soloing spec in the game in Blood and you will rarely have any problem soloing current level elites.

Death Knights lack survivability compared to most melee classes. At least Frost lacks the most.

I wouldn't say this, the glyph of Dark Succor helps tremendously because you can endlessly chain-pull mobs with little down-time. Combined with Death Pact, AMS, AMZ and IBF to an extent it's not that bad.

Pro: You get to be a Death Knight
Pro: Frost has some ridiculous AoE burst
Pro: Blood is virtually indestructible for anything below raid difficulty
Pro: All the defensive cooldowns
Con: Melee
Con: Xxarthasdkxx gives us a bad name
Con: Math or you don't do much damage (and die)
Con: PvP survivability is pretty much a joke right now

Call to arms, the trumpets sound
Hand puppets storm the base, flags up now cannons rage
All clowns head for the rear, slingshots fire to the air
Toy horses start the charge, Robot chessmen standing guard
Crossfire to the marionettes, Slip into the edge of death...

I've leveled 4 DKs to level cap, starting in Wrath through current content. You can certainly level Frost, and with the glyph of Dark Succor you will have very little down time. However, I found Blood to be pretty tough to beat - the damage while leveling isn't bad, you won't have the chance to 2 shot things like Frost, but you probably won't die unless you /afk. The way I look at leveling alts is this: play the spec that you expect to play when you hit level cap. I wanted to tank so I stuck with blood, the crazy situations help you learn the ins and outs of your toon very well. If you're pretty certain that you want Frost, then jump in and go for it.

Other advice: try all 3 specs. They all play so very differently that the similarities are only that you're still labeled a Death Knight and you melee.
Blood: survivability until you start raiding. Yeah, I mean by yourself. Yeah, even when you have heroic gear you can take hits and not fold like a napkin, try it, you'll like it.
Frost: BURST. Seeing huge crits (for me) of up to 233k (LFR gear, I know) during raids is just fun as hell.
Unholy: Imagine a warlock with a 2H and no "Fear" spell who's always in Demo form. Sexy, although less bursty than Frost.

Play each one, see what you like. I settled with Blood and play Frost as DPS, you may find that you like something else - go for it.

I'm thinking of leleveling a Frost Death Knight and was wondering what some of the pros and cons of the class are?

Death Knights are a great class, it's def a class you will have to play for a long time though to really "feel" different woe's and worries people talk about a lot on forums and such as it's a pretty intricate class I would say.

I'll list my biggest con, yet biggest pro at the same time first. The Rune/Runic Power system. It's pretty unique, you use runes to deal damage which generates runic power which deals damage and brings rune regen benefits. It has a really unique feel to it, and depending on which rune regen talent you choose as well you can get totally different feels to it. I love the system, I have become very accustomed to it and I know it well from long playtime on it but it did take a while before you could learn all the little tricks to it.

Cons:
Melee
Squishy in PvP, 5.2 helped but I have still heard complaints
Resource system management

Pros:
Completely different playstyle's between the specs (just in the 2 dps specs there are 2 playstyles in each, all which play different. Overall though I consider Frost to be more bursty, and unholy more sustained and smooth)
VERY strong CD with AMS, providing magic damage protection and damage in the form of runic power.
Pet class, but only for one spec
Very easy to solo old content
A very "fun" class

I could say a lot more probably, but it really is hard to word why I love dk's. I just do because of my experiences with them, a bad but relevant example is being frost and seeing the huge numbers crit across the screen.

Very easy to pick up and can poop out solid dps. There's less micromanaging in Frost and I prefer it because your rotation isn't the most complex and is very forgiving. It allows you to actually enjoy a fight instead of spiking your blood pressure to hit the right combo of buttons in the right order with the right procs, etc.

Blood tanking is hilarious. Also extremely fun, easy to pick up the play style, and it gets to the point where you become nigh unkillable in non-raid environments (including BGs). During 5-mans, there have been several bosses where I am the last one standing and I simply solo the boss for the kill... because I can. In a Warsong Gulch, I tanked almost the entire team while carrying the flag from their base all the way to the front of mine before I died, but by then, my team managed to respawn and engage the enemy.

DKs in general make you feel great about what you do. Sometimes it seems weird for a scrawny clothie to accomplish our kinds of feats, and even monks seem out of place - as if punch a dragon's toe-nails is really going to wound it. But then you play a DK and you become this juggernaut that just tears through everything, last man (or woman) standing, and while mechanics don't favor you in any way, the play style still makes you feel the "hero" part of "hero class".

While the responses to this topic can easily get very detailed and nuanced, it really boils down to:

Pros: Can be a Tank or melee DPS
Cons: Can't be a Healer or ranged DPS

---------- Post added 2013-04-04 at 01:20 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Omertocracy

Con: Xxarthasdkxx gives us a bad name

Heh, I ran a random heroic last night in my nightly LFR/Heroic/Scenario queue fest, and the tank was called "HDK", which made me raise an eyebrow, thinking it was something like "MDK" (Murder-Death-Kill), then I realized he was a Human. Lol.

I leveled an unholy DK and he felt weak and squishy in comparison to my demo lock. my lock would take 10 mobs at a time while leveling and they didn't take long to die (dark apotheosis + wrathguard AoEing). with the DK, 3 mobs and I was fighting for my life.

but my thumb rule is: play what you find cool. you can adapt to it's gameplay, it's strengths and it's weaknesses over time

I leveled an unholy DK and he felt weak and squishy in comparison to my demo lock. my lock would take 10 mobs at a time while leveling and they didn't take long to die (dark apotheosis + wrathguard AoEing). with the DK, 3 mobs and I was fighting for my life.

but my thumb rule is: play what you find cool. you can adapt to it's gameplay, it's strengths and it's weaknesses over time

Try Blood. You might like it. And you only start worrying at 20+ mobs.

Call to arms, the trumpets sound
Hand puppets storm the base, flags up now cannons rage
All clowns head for the rear, slingshots fire to the air
Toy horses start the charge, Robot chessmen standing guard
Crossfire to the marionettes, Slip into the edge of death...

Pros :
As Blood, You are a very good and solid tank, with greating healing. And not to hard to play.
As Blood, you a are the master of soloing. If it is soloable, it is done by a blood deathknight.
Frost: You have A very strong singel target, and can change on the fly to a very solid AOE spec(howling blast spam)

cons:
Your resourses can be hard to manage for some, As if you fuck up, it can really really hurt your damge.
In PvP you are very Squishy in PVP. Even going full resil, you die pretty fast if targed.

In The Middel : You are a melee, some people hate it, Most raids are "harder" as a melee, you have to move out of more things, you have to be carefull about where you stand(in a bigger degree then range) and when something comes flying from the boss to you, a range have longer time to react.
I can not comment on unholy, since i have not tried it since WOLK.